Archive for January 2014

I’ve been sitting here listening to some of Shirlee’s collection of 1950s rock and roll cds. With almost each song I can remember a time and place back in the day. It’s interesting how the mind works along those lines. I can almost smell the french fries, the greasy hamburger, the taste of the ice cold Coke and the background noise of other teenagers sitting at tables chatting away. Another time, another place, but at 75, still fresh.

I took my test to join the Marine Corps sitting in a booth in Colozzi’s Drug Store. The recruiter sitting beside me, two or three of my buddies crammed into the seat on the other side of the table. It was lunch hour and the place was packed, juke box playing just under the sound of voices. Noisy, yes, but relaxing. I felt like I belonged, another home. Heaven.

So, when things get a little confusing now and again, or pressures get a little heavy or maybe I just want to relax and let the present slip away all I have to do is put on one of those cds loaded with music from those bygone years and soak it all in again. 18 again, cruising the gut in my ’49 Pontiac, one arm around the gal beside me, the other steering with the necking knob on the wheel. AM radio blaring the top tunes from WILS in Lansing, Erick ‘O or Hank Stevens adding a little comment now and then. Life was simple. Life was good.

Do I want to stay back there all the time? No, of course not. Time has moved on, as well it should and while the past is a pleasant place to visit, it’s the present that’s important now. Each day is new, challenges, ups and downs, good and not so good. That’s today. The future stretches before me. What it holds I know not. But I do know I’ll take it a day at a time, with a little nostalgia to help, and in the title of Shirlee’s favorite cd by the gospel group Selah, “Press On!